LISTED REVIEWS
Every land is a beach, every man is an elephant. Bow down to the sounds of the Elephant Beach, the newest project between Chicago native Thaione Davis and Swiss beatmaker J Sayne. An album made in the midst of the European-American collabo trend that started off for real with the Foreign Exchange album.
POSTED 06|10|2006
Coming from a city called Dallas and a crew named The Socialists, Mes The Jive Turkey drops his first full lenght on Mr Dibbs' Self Core Records (distributed through Rhymesayers). A small tip: don't rely on the title too much, 'Songs About You' ain't your average love themed album, rather an expression of the ambiguity of life, its adversities, girls and their lips and the downfall of quality music.
POSTED 06|07|2006
In the end you gotta give Bomshot credit for completin the album, he did a nice job by letting it sound as one whole and as a natural thing. While the story behind it is definitely as entertaining as the album itself, this shouldn’t keep you from checkin it out and give it some play. It’s good, hardcore and massive music.
POSTED 06|01|2006
Basic Vocab is a crew that sticks together, bringin forth a fresh, cohesive vibe, peddling against the crunk stream of music of the Southern hip-hop scene, to which the producer of the album ironically contributes himself and proves that eventually music is…music. Call it ironically or genius, fact is that this album feels real good to the Eustachian.
POSTED 05|24|2006
In the midst of a wave of instrumental albums, Ayatollah drops this collection of personal 'favourites'. A compilation of unearthed beats and instrumentals of previously issued tracks that hold a wide range of chopped instruments, crunchy bass lines and loops the size of a ghetto booty. The voice samples are most frequent on this album and dominate the album's sound, leavin not even a tiny gist on who produced 'Ms Fat Booty'.
POSTED 05|23|2006
While former releases didn’t bring them the attention they deserved to gain, 'The Staple' should put this Boston group in the spotlight and give them a permanent place in the rich and competitive Boston rap scene.
POSTED 05|23|2006
Several producers are included in the line-up (two by BenFlowz himself) and give this album a nice diversity that breaks through the monotony a 18-track album sometimes brings along. 'Tomorrow' is an honoust effort that shows Benflowz' dedication, persistence and potency. Not your favourite rapper nor producer, but a name to remember!
POSTED 05|16|2006
While waiting for the arrival of his debut album 'Ghost City', Keith Masters brings us the 'Bioluminescence' mixtape. 'Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism as the result of a chemical reaction during which chemical energy is converted to light energy', the dictionary told us, which should immediately give us a hint that Keith Masters is in the first place a solo player, who’s making things happen on his own.
POSTED 05|16|2006
None the less funk is back in hip-hop. If you would translate a good ol' Bomb Squad produced album or an early Ice Cube and Erick Sermon production to the year 2006, it probably would sound something like this. Boots Riley is the Bootsy Collins of hip-hop and has managed to put together a great thing on his own, puttin The Coup back on the map, having us reminiscing on the excellent 'Steal This Album' (what we actually did, but only to get in the spirit of the album, shhht!).
POSTED 04|26|2006
With productions for Everlast, Cypress Hill, Ice-T, King Tee, The Alkaholiks, 7A3 (another West Coast name to never forget), and Salt N Peppa, Bashir has built quite a name for himself. Now’s the time for you to re-discover, because albums such as this really put the focus on how innovative, creative and at the same time humourous these pioneering producers really were.
POSTED 04|24|2006from the vaults
